Chapter 6 The Reckoning
The Reckoning
Iwatched in absolute awe as he made his way out of the store wearing the necklace that I’d wanted—maybe it looked better on him, but then again everything looks good on people like him.
Every piece of jewellery will look like it was manufactured in his image.
Despite the way his dark, gold-rimmed sunglasses shielded his eyes I would know his face until the end of my days burned into the back of my mind. I would know him blind.
“What’s he doing in New York?” Sydney wondered, glaring at the cluster of security surrounding him in disbelief. “I thought that—”
“He moved back to the UK years ago, yeah, we all thought so but apparently we’re wrong,” I completed her sentence, “This is unbelievable.”
“Maybe we just have a very vivid imagination, maybe we’re just making things up,” Sydney backtracked, giggling nervously. “Maybe we’re just sleep-deprived!”
“I wish.” I took a deep breath, shaking my head and staring at him in both awe and disbelief. “He’s back.”
“The devil himself,” Sydney quipped, taking her shopping bags from the sales clerk. “Apparently there’s a huge crowd gathered outside too.”
“To what, watch him walk in and out of a store?” I narrowed my eyes in skepticism.
“Exactly that,” Sydney affirmed as we pushed our way past the crowd and on our way to the next store. “Wow, I never thought I’d see the day little Wynter Kwon was representing one of the biggest luxury brands in the entire world.”
“Calling him little Wynter Kwon when he’s two years older than us is crazy.” I chuckled. “Two years!”
“God, when we were younger that age gap felt like an entire decade, but now it feels like nothing at all,” Sydney expressed. “I guess that’s why he was always closer with Cahya and Beck. We were always just the kids to them.”
“Yeah, we were.” I realized it now, just as I’d realized it then. "I wonder if they’re all back in town, him and the girls, even Mr Kwon?”
“Don’t you think we would’ve heard from them by now?” Sydney furrowed her eyebrows in uncertainty.
“Maybe, there was a time when Bae would’ve been the first to call and let us know she was within breathing distance, a time Jiwon would’ve rather died than not let us know,” I reassured her, “but you know things have been different since they moved back home.”
“But Soh, Waverly Peak was their home. That little blue house on Clementine street was their home, we were their home don’t you remember?” she insisted with such emotion in her eyes.
“You know we all try not to.” My voice trailed off. “They seemed happy in Nottingham, in the postcards and pictures at least.”
“We haven’t gotten a postcard in years!” Sydney reminded me as if I could ever forget.
I never forgot anything, not even for a moment, not even for a single second.
I was cursed with the burden of not being able to wash anything away from my memory.
I was the salt in the sea, the rhythm in the waves, the petrichor after the rain, the leaves at the bottom of a teacup, bones after the decay—everything about me lingered.
Everything I’d ever loved or desired I clung to for dear life leaving claw marks on it till my fingernails were bloodied and my knees bruised.
“Sydney please—” I insisted, not trying to unravel the past in the middle of the shopping mall.
“I won’t start anything, I know not to think it and not to say it, but sometimes I still want to know if even the little things are still the same.
In a world where the only thing that you can rely on is that everything is constantly changing, I often find myself wondering what does stay.
I wonder if Jiwon still can’t stand when people chew with their mouths open, or if she still thinks apple juice is better than orange juice.
If Bae still makes Wynter cut off the crust to her peanut butter and jelly sandwich every time he makes it for her, if he still does anyway.
If Beck still hates being called Rebecca and finally changed Beck to her legal name, if she still loves horror films.” Sydney glanced down at her feet and swallowed hard. “It’s okay to have a thought, right?”
Her words hit me right where it hurt—I was aware of the promise that we all made, of the pact we formed for the better of us all.
But I could tell that this had been weighing heavily on Sydney’s mind and if there was one thing I knew, it was that the longer you pull back an elastic band the more it’s going to sting when it finally snaps.
“Yes, it’s okay,” I assured her, and her gaze softened. “Your thoughts are safe with me.”
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We began to make our way out of the shopping center, and it was only then when I lifted my head and stared up at the huge billboards around me that I realized that Wynter Kwon’s face really was absolutely everywhere.
There was no avoiding him, to my left he was in an ad for North Face, sporting winter wear in puffer jackets and snow boots, to my right he was on a TV screen at a cafe doing an interview with Good Morning America talking about his experiences.
And of course, the huge Versace fall campaign billboard that was only just being put up, flashing lights as crowds gathered around to take pictures.
There was no escaping him now, not while he was here in the US and the object of everyone’s attention.
“Were these always here?” I asked Sydney when she caught me staring. “Did I just never notice?”
“Some of them were but there’s definitely so much more now,” she told me, “C’mon, let’s head back, it’s getting late.”
We drove back to campus and settled down in our little studio apartment with Remi who’d already made dinner which was Alfredo pasta.
We all curled up by the TV with our bowls and a blanket and binge-watched reruns of Gossip Girl—things seemed so simple and easy when it was just us girls alone in our room.
At times like that, it was easier for me to forget that things were once so different, I was a beach girl through and through right down to my bones.
But maybe I could get used to this city life beside people who really did care about me.
That night when the girls were asleep, I grabbed my computer and made a decision to do something I probably shouldn’t have, but I was curious and I was tired of pretending that I wasn’t dying to know.
I allowed my curiosity to get the best of me and I hugged my laptop close underneath my blankets and searched up a name I hadn’t thought of in a very long time. A name I didn’t let myself think of.
WYNTER KWON.
And my jaw fell to the floor at the results.
Wynter Andy Kwon is a twenty-one-year-old Korean-English professional figure skater.
He grew up in Nottinghamshire with his family before moving all around the world to compete in competitions from the time he was young.
By the time he was ten, he had won hundreds of awards and broke the world record for the youngest person to win an Olympic gold medal in figure skating.
Now, he is a triple-Olympic-gold-medal champion, and he has become a household name as the story of the rookie who beat the odds is told time and time again.
Wynter donates to various charities for the underprivileged and not much is known about the skater’s personal life as he remains very private.
Latest news reports that he is the new global ambassador for luxury brand Versace and will be the star of their winter/fall campaign. CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE.
I wanted to see more. And so then I did.
I watched videos of him skating even though I’d seen it up close many times before.
I watched his performance of “Young and Beautiful” by Lana Del Rey that brought the audience to tears, I watched people clutching their hearts in the audience and the judges wiping their eyes.
There was no denying that he was incredibly talented and everyone could see it.
I believe that people like Wynter Kwon were born to be adored, roses were cultivated with the intent to be thrown in his direction, and applause the only sound he’d ever hear.
He was a natural-born performer and it was certain from the day that he was born—on February 14th, which is Valentine’s Day—that he would be loved, and deeply so.
There are many critics who argue that his praise is all in vain and should be attributed solely to his looks.
And I am no fool, no one is, everyone knows that it never hurts to be good-looking.
But I don’t think Wynter is just as simple as good-looking, he’s like a bright red poppy in a field of evergreen grass, like glaring at the sun at its peak in the sky so much your eyes burn, but you don’t mind.
He’s like the thunderstorm that rains down after a long drought.
He just stands out without even trying. His beauty is so effortless and captivating.
It almost makes my stomach turn. He has never known what it’s like to not have everyone worship the ground he walks on.
He’s a god in his own right—there was something religious almost, about the kind of praise he received.
So you see, when it was announced that Julliard—a performing arts school, that was strictly just that for generations, was introducing a figure skating program it was a given that they would beg him to coach, because who was more fit?
And that night as I went to bed, I couldn’t help but wonder what had brought him back to the United States; the last I heard from him, he swore he would never come back, never.
I wondered if he remembered that I went to Julliard, that my brother did too.
I wonder if the flashing lights were enough to make him forget us all.
Maybe we were never even worth holding onto.
I wondered, just as Sydney did, if he was different in any way.
He certainly looked it. He was much more mature now, much more sturdy, like a great white oak, and grown up.
I wondered if I was too, if he’d notice that if he’d ever see me.
Maybe he’d see me this time.
As I was helping my brother move in the last of his boxes the next day after classes, I may have done a very bad thing.
I did a bad thing, and I don’t know if I regret it.
They say curiosity killed the cat, but I believe knowledge revived it.
This is why when I saw that one box with things that I knew didn’t belong to Cahya, the box with the diary in it to be exact, I knew that I had to take my chance to get a better look, and that was the only reason that I snuck it underneath my coat and took it with me to my room.
If my brother was ever going to actually search for it, he could very easily just ask me.
Not that I’d give it back, but he could still ask me.
I knew this diary, I’d seen it every summer, and I knew more than anything how dear it was to its owner.
My only wonder was how the hell my brother had gotten a hold of it?
And so I stared at it as it sat on our coffee table.
Remi, and Sydney were out and so it was just me at the dorms. I sat on the couch, biting the skin under my nails, debating what to do.
This was Wynter’s diary, I knew that much was certain because of his initials engraved into the corner.
This was the same diary that he had all those summers ago, it was old.
I knew it would be wrong to read it and invade his privacy, but there was an allure I couldn’t quite explain to that invasion within itself.
I wanted to crawl beneath the floorboards of his mind to get all the answers that I didn’t back then. I knew it was wrong.
There was a part of me that was willing to do whatever it took to get my closure.
But just then, as I was about to crawl into my own mind, there was a knock at my door, and my heart jumped. I realize that it was probably my brother coming to get this back. I grounded and lifted myself up from the couch in frustration, making my way towards the door.
“Listen Cahya if you’re—” I began, swinging the door open, but just as I did, my breath caught in my throat, and I took a step back.
No…there was no fucking way. It couldn’t be. I wasn’t going to let myself believe it for even a second.
There in my doorway, towering over me with his black and gold sunglasses in his hair and cold, dark gaze staring down at me, was none other than the very object of my hyperfixation for the past twenty-four hours.
“It’s...you,” I murmured, glancing up at him.
“You have something that belongs to me.” He leaned against the doorway. “And I want it back.”
I was beyond screwed, but maybe I didn’t really mind this time. Because this would be the year I would make Wynter Kwon see me.